The Rainbow Dreams Assisted Living Resort
by Shadow Wasserson
Summary: Very few people in Ebbotton mind that the senior home is run by monsters.


There's a cluster of buildings on the hill. Mostly brick cottages with tile roofs, surrounded by lovely topiaries, verdant gardens, and graceful fountains. There are larger buildings too, including a theater-house and an open air crafts market. There are beautiful views of Ebbotton visible from many places in the complex, and on clear days you can see the ocean.

Everything is kept meticulously clean and orderly. There are big windows in all the buildings and plenty of flowers, with something blooming at all times of the year. Nurses with kind voices and gentle manners are always on call.

There's a sign out front. It says:

**RAINBOW DREAMS ASSISTED LIVING RESORT**

It is shockingly cheap to purchase residency, and there are usually hundreds of residents at any given time. Seniors often fly in from far away to take vacancies.

Very few people mind that it's run by monsters.

* * *

It's hard to trust. There was the genocidal war, then the millenia of imprisonment, then the fact that everyone forget the very existence of monsters in all but legend. And there's also the disappearances. What did happen to those children, after all these years?

It's hard to understand. They break the laws of physics. They don't make sense. Magic exists. Souls exist. The scientific community is in uproar, and the shockwaves still haven't settled.

It's hard to accept. They want their own sovereignty. They want a place to live. They want peace. They're wary. Their ambassador is eleven years old. Where are we supposed to put them all?

Not everyone trusts. Not everyone understands. Not everyone accepts. Hostilities threatened, once, twice, again. There was violence.

But magic food heals human bodies. And, so far as anyone knows, only monsters can make magic food. Going into medicine seems a natural step towards acceptance, understanding, trust. Reaching out towards the most vulnerable, the poor, the young, the old.

Still, humans are mortal. Humans die. They die a lot, and there are _so _many of them. So many more than there are monsters.

It's perfectly reasonable. Humans can't even see their own souls without magical aid. Who would miss a few?

The staff of Rainbow Dreams Assisted Living Home and Resort is mostly made up of the less threatening, more familiar-looking monsters: the fluffy bunnies and the birds, the panting dogs and perky-eared cats, some mice and deer folk, and the more calm-tempered members of the Temmie clan. But when it comes to the doctors, those with the best healing magic are best-suited, regardless of their appearance.

And so, the emergency doctor at the bedside of Mr. Gershwin is a vegetal monster with a large toothy maw and a set of writhing tendrils serving indeterminately as legs and arms, and her aide is made of rocks. She pours magical healing into the old man, but she knows, and her aide knows, and the nurses know, that his body is failing. It's the end.

Mr. Gershwin does not seem to be conscious, but he hasn't yet flatlined. They could keep his body alive a while longer, if they hooked him up to the right machines. He doesn't have a DNR order, so, by law, that is what they must do.

The doctor does not have visible eyes, but she can sense the world around her well enough. She raises her snaggletoothed face to the stony aide and nods, and the aide unplugs the respirator without a word.

The procedure is quick, professional, practiced. The doctor snatches Mr. Gershwin's glowing soul the moment it shows itself and puts it in the opaque jar offered by her aide. The aide has it tucked away at the bottom of their bag before the machine even registers the flatline.

They then turn the respirator back on, and go through the motions of resuscitation. Expectedly, it is futile.

The nurses, standing by, say nothing. They are cat monsters. Mr. Gershwin had been the only human in the room.

* * *

The monster that runs the funeral home in Ebbotton is made of snow and wears ice packs in the lining of his jacket whenever he leaves home, but everyone who has ever spoken with him knows him to be warm in disposition.

He observes the proceedings and greets funeral guests with the kind-hearted solemnity that the occasion demands. He is professional, but offers space for guests to weep or otherwise mourn if they need it. His role is in the background, there to alleviate the logistical worries of the family in their time of grief. He sees to the catering and makes sure that the procession to the graveyard goes smoothly, taking the routes with the least traffic. It is summer and sweltering hot, so he needs to refresh his ice packs several times during the service, but he is not obtrusive in his needs.

Mrs. Wellings' funeral is well-attended. She was a much-loved old woman: a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. An aunt, a sister, a friend. Her casket is open, surrounded by her favorite flowers and some of the works of art she painted in life. Her body is well-preserved and tastefully presented. The attendees grieve, but they know she was old. It was her time to go. A sad occasion for all, but not a tragedy.

When the funeral party disperses, the snow monster and his assistants pick up the various discards, the plastic cups and paper plates, the trampled napkins and misplaced flowers. The hearse and the reception hall are vacuumed and scrubbed thoroughly.

It took a long time, for the funeral home director to get used to this work. Monster funerals are very different. No staring at empty husks, no long processions, no coffin, no grave. The science of preserving a body is strange, even alien, to most monster-kind. The stink of the chemicals sloshing through flesh, the acts of washing and painting and dressing a lifeless body, these were things that did not come naturally. But it is important to learn, important to show nothing but the greatest understanding and care for human customs, even the most baffling ones.

It is so, so important for him to learn so he can be better than anyone else at the task, so that humans trust the monsters to handle their dead.

They can't take the chance, however small, that a human with some leftover magic, some meager sliver of the ancient mages' power, might be a mortician, and that they might notice, in their close inspection of a body, that its soul is missing. Those few records of human magic that still exist suggest that a simple funeral attendee wouldn't have the time or inclination to inspect a body for the lingering presence of its soul. And even then, by the time they did there may have passed several days, long enough even for a stubborn human soul to work itself free naturally.

The snow monster who runs the funeral home knows all this. He knows how important this work is. The last of the violence was not _that _long ago, after all. Humans still war with each other, still inflict pain and cruelty on those they perceive as different. Monster-kind could not survive another conflict.

Finished with cleaning and tidying, the snow monster who runs the funeral home washes his hands in ice water. He has never taken a soul from a dead or dying human himself. He's never touched one. But he's seen the carefully-guarded crypt dug into Old New Home, surrounded by puzzles of the most dangerous kind. He's opened that door, and beheld on the other side the last hope for all monsters, should the worst come to pass. Human souls, hundreds of them, glowing in a rainbow of colors, held in sealed jars, waiting for the day they might be needed. He hopes they never will be.

He knows better than to depend on hope alone.


End file.
